The good from the great
Image copyright: Sandman1973
I was chatting with my friend Randa, a successful WordPress designer, and she posed an interesting question:
“I often look at the work of other logo designers in admiration and wonder what they have that I don’t. What is it that makes someone really good at identity design, and is it obtainable through practice or is it a “gift” that some have and others don’t? There are zillions of logo designers out there — what separates the good from the great?”
With enough hard work, I believe you can excel in any profession. There are, of course, certain age barriers. For instance, and I’m very sorry say, you won’t see me strutting my stuff in spandex anytime soon — I’m just too old to achieve olympic gymnast status. Trust me, that’s a good thing. On the other hand, however, if I was to study medicine, and with enough dedication, I could become a doctor.
So for me, creating effective identities certainly isn’t a gift, but rather a skill to be learnt.
What do you think separates the good from the great?
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41 appreciated comments, click here to add one
Aaron Russell
I’m with you David, anyone can be anything they want to be with enough dedication. And although I’m sure you’re devastated you’ve missed the boat on the Olympic gymnast front, I truly believe if you’d gone to your gymnastic lessons every week as a kid, you could have done it!
In terms of logos and other design it’s no different. I think it’s dead egotistical to believe it’s some kind of innate gift from high above. Nope, creativity and design can be taught and learnt like anything else, and with enough dedication anyone can be as good as they want to be.
Aaron Russell’s last blog post…The history of the Internet in pictorial language
Feb 16th, 2009
Filipe
To design a good logo takes some time… I think the designer must think a lot about the logo he is designing, and research a lot about the company and the area of business. It helps to have an open mind, and to read a lot, to observe things on the street, on our daylife… I think a good designer is always analizing things around him. And just like Aaron above, i dont believe in gifts, but in hard work.
Filipe’s last blog post…Designing for friends and family
Feb 16th, 2009
Chen
Good or great does not matters, it is what inside you made who you are, in the end there are nothing to blame but yourself, listen to your heart what you want to become.
Feb 16th, 2009
Deron Sizemore
I think being a great logo designer is something that can be learned with enough dedication, but at the same time I do believe that there are others who are more gifted naturally and logo design (or any design for that matter) seems to come more easily. It’s the same with something like golf. I’ve put in countless hours practicing the game of golf and I have improved tremendously over the years, but no matter how much I practice, there’s likely no way I’ll be on the PGA tour any time soon.
Someone who knows nothing of medicine could definitely go to school and learn to be a doctor. Just like someone who knows nothing about logo design could go to school and learn color theory, etc, but designing unlike medicine isn’t as cut and dry. Designing is more in the eye of the beholder and what one things is great, another may not.
Feb 16th, 2009
Panasit
I’ve designed more than 50 logos, both for class assignments and for freelance. 20 of them ended up in my portfolio.
And every time I looked at those in the twenty, I always think, what if I hadn’t thought of it? what if that idea never came?
Every single one of my design have a “eureka!” moment. I would go insane trying to find a solution to the design problem, and then, like Dr. House before the end of each episode, I may see something or my friends may blurt out of something and that would be it. And I have no idea when it will come. In some project, it never came.
I don’t believe there are such things as good logo designer, I think there is such thing as an experienced designer who knows all the rules. But there’s no guarantee that they can handle EVERY project effectively. I think it all depends on:
- Amount of research they are willing to do for the project.
- Amount of time they have
- Amount of people that can help them look at it from different angle
- Amount of experience…
again this does not guarantee the result will be an effective logo, but at the very least it will be pleasant to look at because it’s balanced.
- Amount of risk the client is willing to take (sometime people just want typical things)
- and I think in the end, Luck.
I say luck because different people get exposed to a different thing in their daily life. If you are 30 years old living in New York and your work will be used in New York, Chicago, or DC, and the client’s target market is 25 – 45, and your style happens to be the current in trend style at the time (what’s the style that is in trend now? Futura light on top of a flat bright yet slightly toned down color?) you are at the advantage.
I took one class where it devoted to a single corporate identity, and I had the hardest time coming up with a logo for a Pet Spa. And then after that class, I took a much harder course where we had to do a corporate identity for a condominium. Afterward my professor told me I have improved a lot because my logo for the condominium was quote unquote “much better than the crap you handed in last year”. I guess I have improved. I was more organized, I sketch a lot more, I do a lot more research, I was willing to go back to the drawing board many times.
But if someone handed me an assignment to do a logo for a pet spa now, there is still a pretty good chance the eureka moment may never come.
Feb 16th, 2009
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Interesting topic, the factor which I think we tend to ‘not think of’ is that there are two ‘hats’ within graphic design (let’s leave web aside for now) – some designers are concepts orientated while others are layout orientated.
I think its good for a designer to have both, but not every designer has good conceptual capabilities.
Question is can one teach a designer to be more ‘conceptual’?
I might have concluded from the just one interaction I had with a designer friend who himself admitted him being unable to generate concepts/ideas… but I doubt it can be taught.
Feb 16th, 2009
Alex Charchar
I think the good know how to ask a question..
i think the great know how to ask that same question and know when it’s a good idea to ask a completely different, upside down, crazy, whacky, quirky one for the same problem.. answers aren’t hard to come by if you ask the right questions.
and as you said, dedication and hard work — you need to want to ask those questions and give those answers again and again
Feb 16th, 2009
gingernutz
may i say, yes, i agree with the statement that with enough dedication you can achieve most things, however i feel that dedication itself, is a gift, that not all people have.
Feb 16th, 2009
Jacob Cass
~ Arthur Conan Doyle Senior
Feb 16th, 2009
Andrew Sabatier
Design as a all encompassing approach has been exhausted.
Design is a commodity bought and traded at fairly set prices.
What keeps design in demand is branding. Design is in service of strategy, hence the birth of the brand consultancy in the last two decades. Design without strategy only has value for personal reasons, hence all the back patting amongst logo designers.
Logos are from the days of above and below the line design.
Brand consultancies led by strategists have the greatest influence over the reason brands exist. And the language has changed accordingly. Your brand is not your logo, it is the brand experience of which the brandmark is an important element but never the brand in total. Brand marks cue brand experiences.
If your identity design is only about the brandmark the brand experience is very limited and is likely to be of limited commercial significance.
Designers in brand consultancies can never claim authorship of brand identities. In the same way that Wally Olins can never claim to have designed the Orange or Beeline brandmarks. But he can claim creative authorship for the brand identity. Wally is a veteran brand identity creative who influences the outcome of the creative work of teams of people who are led by strategic thinkers. The last thing Wally is is a logo designer.
Times have changed. Logos are a thing of history to be consigned to outdated design consultancy speak. There are no great logo designers but there are great crafters of brand identities who give form to great brandmarks in the context of great strategic thinking.
Brands are business strategies made experiential. Logos are something else.
A.
Feb 16th, 2009
Abbas
A good logo designer can create an attractive logo from a brief that meets the client’s basic requirements.
A great logo designer can create a stunning logo, that is purely unique and which rises above the client’s expectations.
Feb 16th, 2009
pat taylor
A combo of gifted talent plus practice, practice and then,
some more practice.
Feb 16th, 2009
Luís Lins
Intelligence.
Feb 16th, 2009
Kevin Burr
What separates the good from the great is persistence. Never give up!
Feb 16th, 2009
Blaise
What separates good from great is “answering a question” or “making a statement.”
Answering a question is simply solving the problem within the time frame, getting paid and moving on with life.
Making a statement is when you dream, grieve, push, tweak, perfect, and celebrate something that not only solves the problem with amazing results, but show that you are passionately in love with your work.
Feb 16th, 2009
David Morin
Hi David,
as in anything, yes brand identity is a learnable skill. It takes dedication, hard work but most of all I believe it’s a matter of passion. With hard work, I could surely become a Flash artist…. but if it isn’t truly fondly my thing, I will end up being one among others.
It is one thing to understand the anatomy of something. But what will truly make the difference, from my experience, is your ability, once you get into the creative process, to find relationships between elements (as you would to create an ad) and translate them into a logo (which becomes your medium of expression).
Is the art of Monet superior than the art of Charles Trenet…. not really, just a different medium that best fits its artist.
Cheers!
Feb 16th, 2009
Al Woods
I think this one is super simple to answer for me. Ideas.
There is a lot of great looking design out there at the moment but it is all technique. This isn’t a bad thing by any means but I find a lot of it is done to hide a weak core idea.
I agree that with enough hard work you can become a good designer, or a good anything for that matter, however, I don’t think you can teach what some creatives have inside them. Without sounding like a total art nob, I think that creatives have a certain something that makes us think differently. I remember at college so many guys being able to make things look nice, but without any real substance or soul to it, very textbook and this is where I go against the learning to become a good designer theory. Certainly we learn and become better but not in the same way that you can learn to build a fence or learn to make a bird table, it is a totally different kind of growth experience I think.
You can’t teach someone to think of good ideas, I think its something you have, or you don’t, which is why we choose our path.
I remember this quote from an annual report once, but I forget who said it:
‘Talent hits a target no-one else can reach. Genius hits a target no-one else can see.’
Spot on!!
Al Woods’s last blog post…16 of 28.
Feb 16th, 2009
Darrell Goza
Whereas I think some have an innate ability to see design in everything and can execute it based on that ability, to a large degree it can also be learned. For ex.: There’s a book (from the early days of type) that contains the 109 rules of type which any designer can use if they want to use type effectively.
There are many books out there done by the people who set the rules we get to use or bend to fit what we have to do. What surprises me is how many designers aren’t aware of the very things that drive good design. They seem to do what they want or like and have no objective criteria by which to judge its solidity.
Feb 16th, 2009
David Morin
Darrell- I agree. Personally, my little bible for creativity always been a small 50 pages book first published in 1965 by James Webb Young, famous copy writer at J. Walter Thompson. I posted a review of the book on my post of Dec. 16th 2008.
David Morin’s last blog post…Cash4Gold rocks! That advertising snobs like it or not.
Feb 16th, 2009
Patrick
Asking the right questions can lead to the insights that drive great work.
Feb 17th, 2009
Anna
I have to agree with the people that say it’s a mix of education, hard work and just having a good eye (“a gift”).
While I was in school, I noticed that even some of the most studious people just weren’t hitting the mark when it came to design. You can learn all of the principles of design, pass every written test on it, and even learn how to properly kern text. But there is always a little je ne seis quoi that just can’t be taught, since there really is no right or wrong answer.
You can tell someone that their design doesn’t hit the mark, and you can tell them why, but it’s much more difficult to teach them how to fix it without telling them what YOU would do. Telling some body how you would design something hardly justifies teaching them how to be designers (even if you are one, yourself). It’s no different than cheating.
Feb 17th, 2009
James Kurtz III
“Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.”
-Willy Wonka
Which of course is 105% and a whole lot of nonsense. But there is some wisdom to be found. Hard work is a crucial aspect of success.
Feb 17th, 2009
David Airey
Fantastic answers. Thanks very much, everyone.
Some of your stated ‘separators’ really stand out for me, and I’m going to compile them in an upcoming follow-up. Stay tuned for that, and thanks again!
Feb 17th, 2009
Zach
I sort of agree and disagree. I do believe that if you work hard enough at something you can be good at it. But I also believe there are some people that just have the gift.
Feb 18th, 2009
Trish
Surprisingly there were several things no one hit on. Intelligence, opportunity and talent. Talent was mentioned to some degree, but in order to be anything you want to be you have to have a certain degree of intelligence and an opportunity to go with talent. Used to be graphic designers were artists first, graphic designers second. With education you no longer have to be an artist in order to be a designer. I maintain, however, that to be a great graphic designer, you have to be an artist as well. Artistry implies creativity and imagination. Not everyone has those qualities. Some talents are linear rather than abstract. A lucky few have both. Without intelligence it doesn’t matter how much education you have. Intelligence allows you to use what you learn through education to its full potential and those with good intelligence never stop learning or wanting to learn. Also, it takes intelligence to spot and take advantage of opportunities. Certainly some opportunities can be created (again, intelligence required), but there is no such thing as equal opportunity. Opportunity shows up all along life’s road. Did you have the opportunity to go to a good school/s as a child? Did you have the opportunity to get a higher education? Are there job opportunities in your area? And don’t forget many opportunities require money in order to take advantage of them.
Can you be a graphic designer without talent? Grudgingly, I would say yes. To be great I say no. Can you be a graphic designer without intelligence? Again, yes. There is enough art in graphic design and subjectivity, that I would say you don’t have to be intelligent to be a graphic designer. To be a great one? Absolutely you have to have intelligence. Can you be a graphic designer, let alone a great graphic designer, without opportunity? No.
Feb 19th, 2009
Al Woods
Hey Trish, interesting comments there.
I can see where you’re coming from but I do have to disagree to some extent. I agree that opportunity is something that is needed to progress but I don’t think that you need opportunity to be a great designer or artist. yes you need the chance to show off your skill and shine, but, if the opportunity isn’t there to do so that doesn’t make you any less of a designer, it just means that less people know it. Plus, if you really know your skills then most would create the opportunity and with the likes of social networking now online I don’t think anyone can say ‘I never got the opportunity to show what I can do’.
As for intelligence. Again I can see your point but again I think it isn’t something that makes a great artist or designer. People can be immensely creative without having a huge intellect. Some may say there are plenty of brilliant artists out there that lack certain mental skills but have a creative capacity that just amazes. I also think, sometimes, having a decent level of intelligence can often hinder a designer. It is too easy to rubbish an idea before it even evolves which is where some of the greatest ideas are born. If you choose not to go down one path, you could miss out on fantastic design mistakes.
I’m not by any means saying I’m right or you’re wrong, I think you’ve raised some good points that, like you say, most of us hadn’t mentioned.
Al Woods’s last blog post…19 of 28.
Feb 19th, 2009
Trish
Just to give you some perspective on opportunity, if your computer dies and you don’t have the money to replace it, that is a huge opportunity gone. Or maybe you never could afford a computer? Yes, some people are that poor. And if no one knows you are a great designer, than you aren’t. It is like if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around does it still make noise? I’m sure the squirrels heard it. But they can’t tell you they heard it. Sorry, got all philosophical for a moment.
Feb 19th, 2009
Steve Brown
Commitment to the profession. Being receptive to all possibilities/ideas. Pragmatism is essential, but the great designers are able to go outside logical boundaries, and introduce the new.
Steve Brown’s last blog post…Tony Plant scores another cover shot
Feb 20th, 2009
Bryan Hoyt
I like the sorts of things people are saying here, and agree with a lot of them.
But many of these things are simply valuable tools in a good designer’s toolbox (forgive me a cliché). They’re helpful, sometimes indispensable, and once in a while they put someone a little ahead of the crowd.
But I think the biggest thing that sets apart the great from the good in any field is a full understanding of how that field fits into history, why it’s taken the direction it has, and where it fits into other fields that are closely or distantly related to it.
From that pedestal, the next thing a great artist/designer will see is the level of technical brilliance that their historical peers have had.
You can’t be great without technical skill. But your technical skill is nothing without an utterly complete understanding of your field’s place in history.
Feb 20th, 2009
Imani Lateef
What makes a good designer happens to be the same thing that makes a good logo design.
COMMUNICATION!
Good logo designs are accomplished when the designer thoroughly communicates the clients vision.
Good logo designs communicates the clients vision to their core audience in their absence.
Good logo designers are able communicate directly with their clients as well as communicate visually.
This is why some of us have IT and some of us don’t because true mastery really isn’t in THE TOOLS at all….it’s in the DESIGNER
Feb 21st, 2009
Panasit
Opportunity can be something as simple as being able to attend a design school. Which I’m sure you all know, are all very expensive.
I’m not saying you can’t self-taught the typographic rule, book design, and all the other design principles. But I know first hand that even though it is possible, it’s very very very very hard. There is a need for trial and error. You have to get yourself to a point where you don’t know why your work sucks, your professor just told you that it is. You threw away your original concept of beauty, you swallow all your pride that you brought with you into your third year, that is when you ascend from amateur to professional level.
Again, I’m not saying you can’t do it yourself, but it’s very very very hard. And I’m not even talking about the facilities and all that. This assume that you don’t have money for design school but you have money for Mac Book Pro and access to paid typeface, like the ones started with, oh I don’t know, the letter “H”.
Plus most of the opportunities we have comes from the university we attended. The people we met through there. Friends with big plans for the future. Internships. Guest lectures. Our professor’s connection. Sometime our family have connection, and sometime we can meet with friends online. But not all humans are social type, if you know what I mean. I have many friends who are by all means “good” designers but I have to literally drag them out of their apartment to attend lectures and meet with other people within the industry.
Feb 21st, 2009
Al Woods
I suppose knowing when to stop helps too.
I think it’s a great skill/discipline to spend hours evolving a logo design, for example, then being able to go right back to the one you did after 20 minutes and realizing that was the one.
Being proud of what you do but not too proud to discard all that extra work you did and seeing that part of the process being just as important as creating the design.
I don’t actually think that makes any sense, reading it back.
Screw it!!
Feb 23rd, 2009
Christine
I completely disagree. What separates the good from the great is innate talent, genius, body type, physical ability, or what have you. Do you think Lance Armstrong is who he is without the advantage of his long thigh bones or abnormally large heart? Why can some photographers take fantastic photos with a cheap point & shoot, while others struggle with the best equipment and techniques? The idea that hard work can get you anywhere is completely flawed if you don’t have your head in the sand. Yes, you could still become a doctor. Would you be a great one? Would you excel at any particular specialty? That depends on what you were born with. With hard work, a person can improve. Without hard work, a person can’t become great. But to think that you can become great with only hard work and no innate talent is a pipe dream.
Feb 28th, 2009
Justyn
It takes both the “talent” and the “education,” but neither come without passion. I’ve been a musician for 20+ years and people often confuse what they perceive to be a “gift” for the simple fact that I’ve been practicing my instrument for more than two decades!
I would never have reached this point if I did not have a passion for music.
The great logo designer are the people who are talented and educated, but also are passionate about their art. That passion somehow shines through in their work in subtle ways that moves others.
Mar 3rd, 2009
Sam Van Eman
I resonated with Trish’s comments above (even the squirrel addition!).
Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers gets at some of your question, David. Ten-thousand hours to greatness, he guesses?
I don’t know about this. I do know there’s something electrifying about being with a true talent – be it in art, or music, or child-raising. You can’t help but know that you are NOT him/her, regardless of the hours you’ve invested in the vocation. (Or, if you are him/her, you would see that others are NOT you.) True talents can be couch potatoes and still captivate me.
And make me jealous.
Mar 7th, 2009
Trish
I was lucky enough to be born with a certain amount of artistic talent. However, I have found out that there are different amounts of talent out there. An accountant friend and I were doodling one day and he could draw so much better than I could and with almost no effort. I was afire with jealousy. I’ve come to terms with what I consider now to be just above average talent. But it is true that when you are around a blazing talent, it leaves you in awe. And when that person isn’t using it, it leaves you bereft. Talent without passion.
Regardless of the amount of talent you have, you still need to work/practice your art and learn all you can about it to be TRULY exceptional. Talent with passion!
Mar 7th, 2009
Mike Williams
A bit more practical than theoretical, but…
In my experience there are some designers who think more in “icons” and make amazing ID people. Other designers tend to think more in “layouts” and make terrific design-system and application designers. No one person is good at everything, I suggest designers get a good feel for what they are good at and focus on it.
Here are some key things that make a good designer – equally relevant in ID work as in most other types of design:
1) intuition and experience – must have understanding and eye to quickly understand the challenge/context and not waste time pursuing irrelevant solutions
2) wide degree of lateral thinking – must be able to generate many, many, many diverse ideas
3) deep well of talent – must be able to execute, weed and develop/refine to generate the most potent work
Most of these skills come with practice and working/learning under others with a trained eye.
Additionally if you work within a team it is crucial that you work collaboratively to achieve the best results. (Designers tend to hide in their box and want to reveal their “masterpiece” at the end, which unless you’re a superstar this rarely works better than designing as a well-aligned team.)
Mar 19th, 2009
Augustus Yuan
Well I certainly believe in one sense that there is some talent within this whole idea of those who excel far beyond others. Especially in the logo design industry, it is all based on mentality of how open one can be. Logo designers have to be open to interpretation and view things at different angles constantly. Quite like the experiment Doug Bartow did, he was surprised at all the logo design companies who were too ignorant to ask of a more specific idea as to what Doug wanted for his Flat Track Derby team.
Needless to say, I also believe that while there is talent involved and there are some people who are naturally gifted in the area, it isn’t impossible to achieve greatness. I am almost 17, fairly young, and if I deemed it impossible to reach “greatness” I wouldn’t even be on this site! Logo designing takes a lot of effort though and it does require a unique and open-minded way of thinking. I believe it isn’t something you can necessarily study, but it is something you develop over much experimentation, observation, and execution. In fact, I believe stumbling upon this site was my first step to greatness.
Jun 24th, 2009
David Airey
Love the debate, folks. Thanks very much for continuing. I think Steve sums it up nicely with this quote about what separates the good from the great:
Jun 30th, 2009
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